


Contradictions

by Takada_Saiko



Series: Codename: Grey snippets [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Codename: Grey, F/M, Original work - Freeform, Sickfic, can you write fic on your own works?, pilot project, that's not a fic?, the conundrum of a fic and original writer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-19 04:26:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18130949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Takada_Saiko/pseuds/Takada_Saiko
Summary: They're on the clock and Riley isn't answering his phone.





	Contradictions

**Author's Note:**

> I have a tendency to write little snippets of prose for either scenes I'd like to add into my pilot project Codename: Grey someday or that will likely never make it, but I'm just fond of the idea. Typically they're pieces of backstory or have some element of spoiler-y material, so I don't post them. This doesn't, so here we are. This feels odd to post something that's not technically a fanfic to this site. Is this weird? 
> 
> For those that don't know anything about Codename: Grey, I think this is written so you don't need a lot of information. Jake is an FBI agent with a specialized task force and Cas is a covert operative with a private intelligence firm called Pallas Corp. The two teams were thrown together and tasked with investigating and unraveling a global criminal organization known as the Syndicate. This story takes place sometime very early in S1.

When he hadn’t answered his phone the night before, she had written it off to the fact that it had been two in the morning. The problem was that he hadn’t answered at seven either. Or eight. He wasn’t at the office and neither Quinton or Arlinghaus had been able to reach him either. That meant that Riley was either dead in some back alley somewhere or had overslept his alarm. Right up until Arlinghaus had been able to track his cell to his apartment in Brooklyn, Cas would have put money on the first theory.

The sun was already climbing in the sky by the time she made it all the way down to his apartment complex and to his door. Either one of his people could have come, but Cas was in the mood to make him regret wasting her time that morning.

She pounded hard on the heavy door. There was a long moment of silence from the apartment before she finally heard shuffling from inside. She knocked again - a little harder this time - for good measure. If anyone on the floor had still been sleeping, they weren’t anymore.

Jake Riley jerked the door open and Cas’ original smart remark died on her tongue. He was pale, his gaze a little unfocused, and there were dark circles under his eyes like he hadn’t slept much at all. She’d seen him just the day before, and while he’d seemed a little off his game, it looked like he’d taken a drastic turn downward sometime in the last few hours. “You look like crap.”

He stared at her for a moment like it was taking longer than it should have for the words to process their way through his typically sharp mind. Then he blinked hard, his gaze only a little more focused when his eyes re-opened, and glared. For half a beat she thought he would snark back, and couldn’t help the twinge of disappointment when he turned around without a word and shuffled back into the apartment.

Cas followed, shutting the door behind her, and her gaze drifted over the space as he texted somebody. Kleenex littered the floor, the trash can only half full before he apparently stopped worrying  about the accuracy of his aim. Cough medicine, a bottle of zinc tablets, and a pair of glasses that had her trying to recall if he had a prescription in his file were all cluttering the tiny table next to his bed.

She looked over at the sound his phone made as he sent it skidding across the counter. “Oh look. You do know how to use it.”

Riley glared at her again and opened his mouth only to close it, clear his throat in what sounded like a painful manner, and try again. “What do you want, Cas?”

“For you to check your phone every now and then would be a start.”

“I only just dozed off when you woke up the whole neighborhood.” He paused a second, reaching up to run a hand through his dark hair and standing it on end. “I’m sick.”

“I can see that, but unless you tell someone, there’s no way for us to know unless we come pounding on your door.”

That finally pulled that annoyingly smug smirk from him that she knew all too well. “What? Super spy can’t piece the clues together?”

“You know I’m good, Riley, but even I need intel. I was under the distinct impression you would be pissed if I bugged your apartment-“

“Pretty sure I told you that the next time you break into my apartment that I’m gonna arrest you.”

“- so I had no way to know why you weren’t answer my calls.”

He snorted, which turned into a coughing fit as he made his way over to his desk chair and half fell into it. Between hacking, he motioned at her. If he was trying to offer any sort of explanation was impossible to tell, so she took the initiative to grab the bottle of water he had on the floor next to his bed and handed it to him. He took it and managed a couple of gulps, finally drowning the cough at least momentarily. He swallowed hard and winced. “What were you calling about?” he managed, his voice thin.

Strangely enough, Cas had to stop herself from telling him that it could wait. It couldn’t, no matter how miserable he looked. “Our techs were able to break the security on Klein’s phone. I got it to your people this morning when you wouldn’t answer and Quinton recognized the name Gabe Francis. He said you were the only one that could find him.”

Riley slouched down in the chair, eyes squeezed shut and massaging at the bridge of his nose. “Yeah.”

She waited, expecting more, and when it didn’t come she nudged his leg with her boot. “Sometime before the arms dealer gets his guns over the border?”

The federal agent grimaced as he straightened and stood. Cas’ next question died on her lips as he pitched forward, and she had to jump to keep him from face planting into his floor. She helped him stay on his feet - mostly - and started directing him towards the bed. “I can find the guy, but it’ll be a lot quicker if you tell me where to look.”

“Oh no,” he managed through a cough. “You’re not going anywhere near my CI.” He sank gratefully to the bed, falling back against the flattened pillows. “Grab my phone?”

She crossed the the small studio apartment for the discarded phone. It showed one missed text from Quinton, but not the content. Riley had his arm across his eyes like he was trying to block out the light. “Migraine?”

“Working that way,” he muttered, and reached out for the phone.

Cas watched as he opened it and typed in a message. His movements were sluggish. Clumsy. He winced and shifted his weight on the bed, not looking like it helped a lot, and finally made his way through it before locking the screen again. “It’ll -“ he stopped, clearing his throat - “be a couple of hours at least. I’ll get ahold of you when I hear from him.”

He relaxed as best he could where he was, eyes closed and Cas wasn’t sure what to do. He was burning up. If the flush across his cheeks hadn’t been a clear enough sign, the heat burning through his t-shirt when she’d helped him to the bed had sealed it. He wasn’t steady on his feet and from the looks of things was running low on tissues and water. There were no signs that he’d eaten anything recently.

“Go away, Cas,” he grumbled, not bothering to open his eyes.

She lingered just a moment longer and watched as he turned fitfully in the bed, burying himself a little deeper in the blankets, everything about him screaming that he wanted to be left to suffer alone. Finally she turned, making her way out of his apartment without a sound.  

 

* * *

  


Jake woke in stages. The first thing he registered was the distant sound of buzzing. Like an alert coming through. The next was that his eyes didn’t want to open. It took a couple of tries before the world came blurrily back into existence and he found himself lying on his back in his own bed, staring at the ceiling. He didn’t have his contacts in. That was part of the problem. The other was that it felt like someone had slammed his head against a wall.

“You’ve got a text.”

The unexpected voice pulled him through whatever layers of sleep might have remained and Jake would have fallen off the edge of the bed if he hadn’t been tangled up in the sheets so tightly. They hindered the panicked movement long enough for sense to break through the fog  and he squinted at the owner of the voice. “Cas?”

“Hiya.” Cassandra Smith didn’t bother to hide her amusement at his reaction as she waved his phone in front of his face. “You’ve got it set so the text doesn’t show.”

“Yeah… security. Didn’t I tell you to leave?”

“I came back when I realized I didn’t trust you to wake up when Francis texted you. Good thing I did.”

He grunted and reached for his glasses by the table. He hated them. The prescription was five years old at least, which didn’t matter when he wore his contacts day in and day out, but the full force of the cold that had hit him had knocked him for more of a loop than any other had in some time. On top of everything else, having small pieces of plastic stuck to his eyeballs hadn’t exactly been appealing. He set the glasses on his nose and his phone read his thumbprint.

“What’d he say?”

“He’s going to drop the intel off and you’re going to pick it up.”

“I’m not comfortable letting this guy dictate terms.”

“I know him. It’s fine.”

“Sure it is.”

Jake coughed his way through trying to pull in a breath and it took a moment before it passed. At least he wasn’t throwing up anymore.

“You’re shaking.”

“What part of sick didn’t you get?” he groused back at her and watched as she started off towards  his kitchen. Great. His apartment might be small, but he was still going to have trouble forcing his voice loud enough to be heard in the kitchen right now. “It’s a boxing gym on Wyckoff. Lockers in the back. Grab the key from the top drawer in the desk.”

“At the Base or here?”

“Here,” he managed, sinking back again. Who knew talking could wear a person out? Now that he didn’t need them anymore he half tossed his glasses back to the nightstand and curled up into the pillow, listening for Cas to go for the key.

If she did, or when she did, he wasn’t sure. The next thing he knew she was standing over his bed with an oversized mug filled with something that was steaming. She set it on the last empty corner of the table. “If it goes cold, that’s on you. I’ll bring your key back later.”

She didn’t wait for him to answer, but he heard her close the door behind her. It took a moment for him to force himself up on an elbow and to squint over at the soup-filled mug. He hadn’t had any soup in is apartment. Or gatorade, for that matter, but there was a bottle sitting next to his water that was back in its place next to the bed. Against the wall and within reach there was a new box of tissues, some cold medicine, and two more water bottles. Cas had left when he’d told her too, but it looked like she’d returned with what anyone else might have called a care package.

If he ignored the fact that it meant that she’d likely gone snooping through his apartment while he slept, it was almost… thoughtful. She’d played it off like she hadn’t trusted him to wake up and get the job done, and maybe that was part of it, but it wasn’t all of it.  It was the last thing he would have expected from her. He didn’t usually have this much trouble reading people.

But maybe that was the draw, the reason why he hadn’t pitched a bigger fit when the orders came down that they’d be working with the team from Pallas Corp. Every time he thought he had her figured out he found a new layer, a new piece of the puzzle.

She wasn’t a puzzle he was going to solve right then. Right then, as he found himself slipping back down to the bed rather than trying his luck with the soup he wouldn’t be able to keep down anyway, all he could do is file the unexpected kindness away to hadd to his growing pile of contradictions that made up Cassandra Smith.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed my little indulgent piece with Cas and Jake. Those two are turning out to be a lot of fun. I'd love to hear your thoughts if you have any :)


End file.
